Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape

Gr 7 Up–A graphic biography that follows the life of Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), a Japanese American artist renowned for her innovative wire sculptures. Asawa grew up on a farm with her family in Southern California. She was a teen when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and her family was forced to abandon their farm. Her father was incarcerated, and she and the rest of her family were sent to a concentration camp in Arkansas. It was there, while imprisoned, that Asawa cultivated her dreams of becoming an artist. Nakahira chronicles Asawa’s life with great detail, continuing with Asawa graduating high school in the camp and obtaining a scholarship to attend Milwaukee State Teacher College to become an art teacher, where she was unable to finish her degree due to anti-Japanese discrimination. Encouraged by her friends, Asawa entered the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina to study art. The book also includes coverage of other historical figures, like Asawa’s great instructors Bauhaus-trained artists Anni and Josef Albers, inventor R. Buckminister Fuller, and choreographer Merce Cunningham, all who lent themselves to the transformation of her art making.